There is no uniform standard to measure the adequacy or sufficiency of foreign reserves in the world. At present, there are two widely used indicators, one is the traditional indicator that focuses on the basic solvency, and the other is the indicator that comprehensively measures the adequacy of foreign reserves proposed by the International Monetary Fund. Judging from two indicators, the scale of China's foreign reserves is still sufficient. In the long run, to measure the adequacy of foreign exchange reserves, we need to consider the flexibility of RMB exchange rate.
Pay attention to the traditional basic solution indicators
The traditional indicators to measure the adequacy of foreign reserves mainly include two items: one is the import coverage rate, which reflects the time that imports can last under the impact. International trade is the most basic international economic activity and should be given the highest priority. Sufficient level requires foreign exchange reserves to be enough for three months' import; The second is the short-term debt coverage ratio, which is used to measure a country's foreign debt repayment ability in times of crisis. An adequate level requires 65,438+000% external energy storage to repay short-term foreign debts due within one year.
Wang Chunying, spokesperson of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said at the end of this year 1 that China's foreign exchange reserves are still very abundant in terms of external payment ability and debt repayment ability. According to traditional measures, in terms of import payment, foreign exchange reserves need to meet at least three months of imports. Assuming that there is no RMB for external payment, the current foreign exchange demand is about 400 billion US dollars. In fact, cross-border payment can already use RMB. In terms of foreign debt repayment, foreign exchange reserves need to cover 100% of short-term foreign debt. At present, the scale of short-term foreign debts in local and foreign currencies is US$ 890 billion, which is significantly lower than US$ 2010.3 trillion at the end of 2004, indicating that the pressure of repayment of foreign debts has been greatly released recently.
Hongliang, chief economist of CICC, believes that in addition to foreign exchange reserves, China also holds other reserve assets and foreign exchange assets, which also constitute a part of China's external payment capacity and can also be used to maintain financial stability in extreme cases.
Guan Tao, a senior researcher at China Financial Forty Forum, believes that to assess the adequacy of foreign exchange reserves, priority should be given to ensuring the most basic needs from the main uses of foreign exchange reserves, such as import payment and short-term debt repayment, so as to avoid a balance of payments crisis in which currency crisis and debt crisis overlap.